In 1995, Ballantine Books published in New York a book by Benjamin R. Barber. Its title was Jihad
vs.
McWorld, a phrase that would not have made much (any?) sense in 1895, or been easily unpacked even in 1975. It is often in word capsules like these that we see how much a language can change in a century, so as to put Arabic jihad alongside Latin versus while attaching Gaelic Mc (courtesy US fast food) to world, the only bit of original Anglo-Saxon. Barber also provided the subtitle ‘How globalism and tribalism are reshaping the world’, and it is the use of globalism that particularly interests me here. 1995 was a key year for globalization as a label for the worldwide spread of Western and especially US notions and practices relating to trade and technology. On page 23 of his book, Barber says:
• ‘Welcome to McWorld. There is no activity more intrinsically globalizing than trade, no ideology less interested in nations than capitalism, no challenge to frontiers more audacious than the market.’
